Carl Froch chewed gum and smiled. Andre Ward stared hard, as American fighters invariably do, but remained chillingly polite. If there is tension between the two fighters widely, but not universally, acknowledged as the best at 12 stones in the world, it was well disguised when they met in public for the last time before they settle the argument in Atlantic City on Saturday night.

The venue, the Edison Ballroom on West 47th St in New York, hosted marathon dances in the Roaring Twenties and there were few present yesterday who imagined the culmination of Showtime's two-year Super Six series would be anything less than a dance of the highest intensity. Such beverage-enhanced shindigs are designed to ramp up animosity, but the mood was more waltz than tango.

Both promised it would be clean and fair, a pointed reference to events in Washington at the weekend, when Amir Khan lost his WBA and IBF light-welterweight titles with the ill-advised input of the referee, Joe Cooper – although the Nottingham fighter, holder of the WBC belt, the previous day had hinted at mayhem when he said: "I'll go in there and hit him with everything. If that fails, I'll kick him where it hurts." ,On Tuesday he had calmed down. Mind games can be exhausting.

"One judge is American," Froch said. "One's British and one's Canadian. The referee is an American, Steve Smoger — so, it's got to be a dominating performance."

The Californian stylist, known as Son Of God, did say he was briefly riled by Froch's criticism of his public attachment to his religion, but Froch refused to be drawn. So, thank God for that, then.

And each of them agreed that the third super-middleweight with claims to international pre-eminence, the Canadian Lucian Bute, who holds the IBF title and declined to take part in the tournament, remains out of their frame.

The other imponderable in this fight is the state of the wound Ward suffered around his right eye in training three months ago, causing its postponement.

"I'm fully healed. It would be a disservice to the tournament to [raise it as an issue]. It's not even a topic that's come up in camp. There's been too much talk. This is my favourite time. I love to speak the loudest name on the night of the fight. But we're not the favourite. I still got a chip on my shoulder.

"There's been questions about toughness and physicality. He's made some references to my faith, disrespectfully. If he beats me, no excuses; if I beat him, no excuses. No judges, no excuses."

Froch was equally certain of his readiness for what will be the biggest fight of either boxer's careers. "The time for talking is most definitely over. I've got hundreds, close to thousands of British fans coming over.

"They've taken me by surprise, so close to Christmas. Economic times are hard and they've dug deep twice because of the cancellation. Physically and mentally I couldn't be in better shape. It's been a wonderful journey. I've evolved over the past two years. I'm so mentally strong and switched on. I grew as a fighter [losing on points] against [Mikkel Kessler]. I really do think I'm coming to my peak at 34. I'm hitting and breaking targets. As for Ward's injury, it's too difficult to target a square inch on someone's cranium. I'm not banking on his cut opening up. I'll be hitting him in the face hard very often."

On the day it was confirmed Dereck Chisora would challenge Vitali Klitschko for his WBC version of the world heavyweight title in Munich on 18 February, Froch was determined to keep his mind on the job in hand in Atlantic City this weekend.

Froch will be the fourth and final British fighter in a world title fight in 22 days of hectic action on both sides of the Atlantic — after Martin Murray's draw with Felix Sturm in Germany, John Murray's loss to Brandon Rios at Madison Square Garden two weekends ago and the shock dethronement of Amir Khan by Lamont Peterson in Washington on Saturday. It is not exactly a roll.

It was left to the Showtime spokesman Chris DeBlasio for a definitive judgment of the journey.

"It's been two years and two months and the Super Six has produced some intense drama. We've had two big knockouts, one complete shutout, a disqualification and nearly every kind of decision imaginable, the withdrawal of three original participants, promoter disputes, every minute detail disputed and argued. We even had a volcano nearly sidetrack one event [Froch's trip to Denmark, where he lost narrowly to Mikkel Kessler]."

This eastern seaboard has had storm and earthquake in recent months. There could at least be a major squall in Atlantic City on Saturday night.